Incorporating Collaboration Facilitating an authentic collaborative learning experience to promote deeper student engagement with content skills and concepts is important when creating a Problem-Based Learning Unit. Collaborative learning is a valued skill in today’s workplace. In order to accomplish this goal, I will allow students to think, evaluate, apply, understand, and reflect on his/her own. I will facilitate my student’s ability to apply and test what they have learned in the academic setting. I believe that this will provide a real-world experience for them. The content skills and concepts that every student must learn can be applied to something going on in the world today or something in the past. Facilitating authentic tasks will give students a purpose for learning. Teachers must support student’s efforts to identify solutions to the problem outlined in the unit. My role as a teacher will be to facilitate the student’s learning and take a step back from giving students the answers. Supporting their ideas will help to build positive relationships among students. I hope to be seen as a partner in the learning process instead of the person telling everyone what to do. Sullivan said it best when he stated, “The power of learning is in the student” (Sullivan, 1996, pp4). It’s important that I capitalize from that by maximizing their learning potential. Teachers also need not forget to provide ongoing feedback and assessment of student’s individual work as well as their group efforts. This will hold students accountable in collaborative groups. There are several criteria that teachers can use to assign students to collaborative groups. Teachers can look at their social skills, academic skills, student’s interest, random selection, or self-selection. I have found that random selection assigning of groups do not work well with my students age group or grade level. I assign students based on academic skills. I also have to take into account students that are going to work well together, those that don’t socialize all the time with certain students, and their skill level. At the beginning of the year our students take MAP testing on the computer to determine where they are currently in math and reading. I generally group students according to their scores on MAP and PASS testing. The groups are heterogeneously grouped according to gender and ethnicity as well. So there is just not one criterion to look at when developing groups for students to complete projects. When working on a brief assignment, I don’t take all of this into consideration. I pair highs and lows together. I try not to have any more than five in a group to give everyone a chance to participate. I know that there are a lot of digital tools and websites that are really good to use for collaborating. For my unit, I have decided to use Google Docs for students to create and edit their written work online. I am also considering a blog for students to brainstorm ideas together while at home. The podcast will be used for students to present their work and findings. Through each tool, students will benefit in the development of higher order thinking skills. I will assess student’s participation in their collaborative groups using the website rubistar.com. I use this site often when assessing my students on writing assignments, Power Points, and projects. Rubistar allows you to choose from a list the evaluative criteria you want to use. It also allows you to edit the criteria and insert your own based on what you want your students to be responsible for. References: Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009). Integrating technology across the content areas. Baltimore: Author. Sullivan, W. (October 1996). A commentary on the four key concepts of the desired learning paradigm. Paper written as a response to the Maricopa Roundtable Policy Perspectives paper of July, 1994. Retrieve July 14, 2010 from http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/learning/pubs/oct97/li_act_inter.html
Facilitating an authentic collaborative learning experience to promote deeper student engagement with content skills and concepts is important when creating a Problem-Based Learning Unit. Collaborative learning is a valued skill in today’s workplace. In order to accomplish this goal, I will allow students to think, evaluate, apply, understand, and reflect on his/her own. I will facilitate my student’s ability to apply and test what they have learned in the academic setting. I believe that this will provide a real-world experience for them. The content skills and concepts that every student must learn can be applied to something going on in the world today or something in the past. Facilitating authentic tasks will give students a purpose for learning.
Teachers must support student’s efforts to identify solutions to the problem outlined in the unit. My role as a teacher will be to facilitate the student’s learning and take a step back from giving students the answers. Supporting their ideas will help to build positive relationships among students. I hope to be seen as a partner in the learning process instead of the person telling everyone what to do. Sullivan said it best when he stated, “The power of learning is in the student” (Sullivan, 1996, pp4). It’s important that I capitalize from that by maximizing their learning potential. Teachers also need not forget to provide ongoing feedback and assessment of student’s individual work as well as their group efforts. This will hold students accountable in collaborative groups.
There are several criteria that teachers can use to assign students to collaborative groups. Teachers can look at their social skills, academic skills, student’s interest, random selection, or self-selection. I have found that random selection assigning of groups do not work well with my students age group or grade level. I assign students based on academic skills. I also have to take into account students that are going to work well together, those that don’t socialize all the time with certain students, and their skill level. At the beginning of the year our students take MAP testing on the computer to determine where they are currently in math and reading. I generally group students according to their scores on MAP and PASS testing. The groups are heterogeneously grouped according to gender and ethnicity as well. So there is just not one criterion to look at when developing groups for students to complete projects. When working on a brief assignment, I don’t take all of this into consideration. I pair highs and lows together. I try not to have any more than five in a group to give everyone a chance to participate.
I know that there are a lot of digital tools and websites that are really good to use for collaborating. For my unit, I have decided to use Google Docs for students to create and edit their written work online. I am also considering a blog for students to brainstorm ideas together while at home. The podcast will be used for students to present their work and findings. Through each tool, students will benefit in the development of higher order thinking skills.
I will assess student’s participation in their collaborative groups using the website rubistar.com. I use this site often when assessing my students on writing assignments, Power Points, and projects. Rubistar allows you to choose from a list the evaluative criteria you want to use. It also allows you to edit the criteria and insert your own based on what you want your students to be responsible for.
References:
Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009). Integrating technology across the content areas. Baltimore: Author.
Sullivan, W. (October 1996). A commentary on the four key concepts of the desired learning paradigm. Paper written as a response to the Maricopa Roundtable Policy Perspectives paper of July, 1994. Retrieve July 14, 2010 from http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/learning/pubs/oct97/li_act_inter.html